A surgeon was sentenced to seven years in prison in Australia today for killing three patients and permanently harming another.

A jury had convicted Indian-born Jayant Patel, 60, of three counts of manslaughter and one of causing grievous bodily harm while he was a surgeon at a hospital in Queensland state between 2003 and 2005.

The sentence comes more than 25 years after questions were first raised about Patel's competency and ends a five-year battle for patients and their families who accuse Patel, a US citizen, of irreparably damaging their lives.

At the trial, Patel was accused of being driven by a "toxic ego" to perform surgery that US authorities had banned him from undertaking, of misdiagnosing patients and employing sloppy and antiquated techniques. "The community denounces your repeated serious disregard for the welfare of the four patients," Justice John Byrne of the Queensland supreme court told Patel.

Prosecutor Ross Martin told a sentencing hearing that there was no record of a worse case of medical criminal negligence in Australia, and urged Byrne to imprison Patel for at least 10 years.

Defence lawyer Michael Byrne said Patel was a well-intentioned man who had been humiliated during the long trial.

Patel was sentenced to seven years for each count of manslaughter, of Mervyn Morris, James Phillips and Gerry Kemps, and three years for the grievous bodily harm of Ian Vowles, though Byrne ruled that all would be served concurrently. Patel will be eligible for parole after three and a half years.

Patel graduated from medical school in Jamnangar, India, in 1976 and went to New York state two years later. In 1984, New York health officials fined Patel and placed him on probation for failing to examine patients before surgery. He later worked at a hospital in Portland, Oregon, which banned him from liver and pancreatic surgeries in 1998 after dozens of complaints.

In 2003, he took up a posting at the Bundaberg Base hospital. Patel left Australia in 2005, just as questions began to be raised about his record. He was arrested by the FBI in 2008 and extradited for trial.